St. Francis of Assisi “View from the Pew”
PACT Responses to Questions and Concerns
 
Founded in 1985, People Acting in Community Together (PACT) is a grassroots
organization that empowers everyday people to create a more just community. We believe
that real democracy can only be achieved when everyday people have the skills, organization,
and opportunity to advocate for themselves in the public arena. We engage people from all
walks of life, especially those typically disenfranchised from the democratic process, in
PACT’s proven model of community organizing. Through PACT, people from different
ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds learn to work together to solve the most
pervasive social problems of our day.

PACT’s volunteer community leaders learn to have substantive conversations with
their neighbors, determine problems, conduct research on the causes of those problems,
negotiate solutions with public officials, and have an impact on the decisions that affect their
lives. PACT’s extensive leadership training takes place in a variety of settings, including:
thousands of one-to-one meetings; house meetings; intensive weekend workshops; research
meetings with key experts and decision-makers; and large community meetings or “actions”
in which PACT leaders present their personal testimonies, research findings, and proposed
solutions to key elected officials, and elicit their support.

In this way, people learn to participate in and influence our political system and
democratic institutions. Those previously ignored, excluded, or apathetic become involved.
They acquire a powerful, unified voice and gain a seat at the table of public debate and learn
to create systemic change in the areas of education, health care, affordable housing, and other
issues.

Recently, many PACT leaders have focused their attention to improving public
school education and creating a college bound culture. One way has been through district sponsored
new schools that are proving any child from this community can attain high achievement. 
This “raises the bar” throughout the district and provides positive pressure and
competition among the existing public schools. For the first time in districts like Alum Rock,
there is a large, broad-based effort of parents and concerned community members working
for district-wide reform. Hundreds of organized people are now thinking about what makes
an excellent school, the problems of school finance, and the vision for the District. With
parents and others engaged in this way, PACT’s organizing work has developed a new
relationship of accountability between the District and the community. This, more than any
particular reform, creates a foundation for sustained improvement; without an organized
constituency, reforms come and go.

Additional examples of PACT’s most recent accomplishments include:
• Worked with low-income parents, teachers, and the Alum Rock Union Elementary
School District and Franklin-McKinley School District to create excellent new public
schools of choice to ensure that all children, regardless of socio-economic background,
receive an excellent education. Several St. Francis parents and educators have been
involved in these efforts.
• Led the community organizing effort to make Santa Clara the first county in the nation to
provide health insurance to all low-income children, regardless of immigration status.
• Participated in a statewide signature campaign for a 2006 ballot initiative measure to
expand children’s health insurance statewide. St. Francis collected an estimated total of
500 signatures.
• Led an effort, driven by new immigrants, to make Santa Clara County a more welcoming
place for newcomers, through improved police-community relations and preservation of
county legal immigrant services, in response to the growing anti-immigrant movement in
the state and country. PACT volunteers working on immigration also shared testimony of
their work at St. Francis Lenten soup supper event.
• Founded ACE Pubic School Network, an organization that serves as an incubator, trainer,
and start-up funder to new schools of choice in primarily low-income areas.
• Initiated nearly 200 community homework centers in local public schools, giving over
22,000 school children (the majority of whom are from low-income families) access to
teachers, computer equipment, and an atmosphere that encourages achievement.
• Won a $4 million charitable trust and $10 million in direct health care for the poor,
following the sale of a local non-profit hospital to Columbia/HCA, a private hospital
operator.
• Worked with the Mayor of San Jose to ensure new affordable housing units were
implemented in the last 8 years, leading to 10,000 units. Also advocated for affordable
housing for future city developments, such as Coyote Valley.
• Initiated the Greater San Jose Alternative Education Collaborative (GSJAEC) with
United Way Silicon Valley, to support existing alternative education programs and
promote the development on new programs that serve at-risk youth. With growing
dropout rates in Santa Clara County among all high schools, GSJAEC brings parents,
teachers, school districts and community members to the table.

This summer St. Francis’ Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is working on building
relationships and finding new leaders within the congregation and local community.
From these relationships, we hope to discover the most pressing issues at or around St.
Francis of Assisi parish. We are planning to build relationships and locate an issue
through 1-1 meetings, house meetings and our monthly LOC meetings.
We invite all interested members to participate through one of these three meeting
options. All ages and backgrounds are welcomed. For more information feel free to
contact an organizer at (408) 998-8001 or visit our website at www.pactsj.org